The Third Night
by The Star Room
Summary: Tonight he'll see her dance - that's all that really matters.


This is the third night Clint has sat here. Up in the rafters, perched on thin pieces of steel and metal, built above the stage. This is the third night he's brought his bow and set it aside, because what's the point? He won't use it. Not now.

This is the third night he's lied to himself. The third night he's told himself, _you're gaining intel, little chunks of information and evidence that will help SHIELD. _The third night he's crumpled the piece of paper in his hand, sighed, and tossed it in the trash barrel. He'll be gaining no secret details tonight. Just more of that delicate, overpowering light, that soft, trembling music, and the push and flow of her body.

The first night he was truly intending to take her. He would take some part of her past, something he could use, if he didn't actually take her life. But then he got himself ready, positioned himself in his nest, tested the strings, selected an arrow, and the music turned on.

Clint has never been a classical music connoisseur. He's used to the familiar hits of '70s and '80s rock-and-roll that his brother Barney used to play. Barney would sit in a plaid lawn chair with his legs crossed, tapping to the beat, as he rolled a cigarette for the ringmaster. The portable boombox in the guys' tent would fizzle and quake with "Walk This Way" or "Welcome to the Jungle," not "Beethoven's Fifth" and the "Moonlight Sonata." Clint knows little of artwork, of swift beauty and breath-catching harmony. He knows ugly days and rainy days, where the Big Top would almost collapse. He knows days of mud in his jeans, mud that never came out, when SHIELD sent him away from the circus and to an obstacle course, to a much better and stronger bow.

That's why he's caught off guard when the music is instrumental, a quivering piano, legato with little tremors of staccato, no guitar, no words. He loosens his grip on the bow and he peers out onto the stage, where she's finally made her entrance.

It's no mistake that she's beautiful. All the best assassins are. How else can they draw one in, bring a victim close enough to touch, until they administer that poison, that cursed snake bite? The best assassins are actors, and this woman is no different.

But Clint doesn't move. He stays at his post—if you can call it that—and watches.

Her hair is long, stretching down her back, little curls of bursting red flame. She's released it from the ponytail she wore earlier, and it flies freely as she turns. And she does turn. She turns with the perfect precision that only a ballerina can administer, head held straight, eyes fixed, leg lifted and knee bent. Her left foot remains on pointe, which seems excruciating to Clint, but her face is expressionless. It looks focused, perhaps, but without true emotion.

_Like she's going in for the kill._

The music slows for a lingering second, and her leg stretches into the air. It's a straight line, rigid, even, and her skin is covered with white tights in spotless condition. Not a single rip or tear. Clint assumes most of her things are in this order.

She's not quite dancing yet—it's more of a stretch, really. Testing the boundaries of her muscles, locking joints and pressing them further, swaying with the present, invisible sound. Then the music picks up and she lifts her eyes and her whole body hovers.

Clint doesn't know the first thing about Russians or their music. He knows the basic things about Natasha Romanoff—she's a Soviet assassin, she's killed many people, she's extremely dangerous, and she's the dancing woman before him. He does not know what she will do next, what motion her arm will command, and he certainly doesn't know why he's still sitting here. Why he hasn't killed her yet. That was his mission, his solemn command, and it is his responsibility to obey. So why hasn't he?

That's the question he asks himself the first night. _Why?_

He leaves the ballroom complex without gaining so much as an edge on his opponent, without figuring out a single thing. Except that one: Natasha Romanoff can dance like a goddess. And two?

She is proving very, very difficult to kill.

He comes back another night and finally this third, and both nights he loses track of time. Both nights his bow ends up leaning against his knee rather than in his hand, at the ready. Both nights he's captivated by music he's neither cared about nor heard before. Both nights he watches her body bend like it's fluid, as if her muscles are non-existent, like her back is a flag in the wind.

She practices the same song every night. It always seems entirely different.

He leans over the bar like a curious child, peering into the spotlight which makes her eyes flash.

Clint has been in love before. He knows what it feels like, to hold a woman and to smile against her smile, to laugh and tease and sigh. He understands daydreams, because he's had them before. He remembers nights of longing, when the guys' tent was too quiet, and he imagined Alicia's tiny hands against his face, tracing the edges of his mouth. He's been through enough to recognize dream from reality. Alicia fading away with the autumn rain was enough to show him that.

This is not a dream. This is a cold-blooded killer, caught in a meadow of scars and fire, twisting as if the world belongs in her arms. This is a wanted gunman, singing without moving her lips, sliding her foot with the gentle ascension of the treble clef.

This is a woman. Another tireless woman. And Clint Barton is resting above her, watching her spin and soar, and wondering what the _hell _it would be like to kiss her.

He crawls back into the darkness. He shields himself behind the curtain. He runs his fingers through his hair, an ancient calming mechanism that almost never works. He grits his teeth and resists swearing.

How many missions has he been on? How many Medusas has he met, how many Venuses and Aphrodites, Persephones and their curses? How many Queens has he laid to waste, never once falling for those pleading eyes and sculpted faces? He's become one of SHIELD's most trusted. He's at the top of his career. He is Agent Clint Barton, and he is Hawkeye. He is not some naïve boy, peering through the keyhole at the woman in white.

And yet the arrow in his fist snaps with a deafening finality. The bow at his side seems to be gathering dust. He is not poised to strike, he is a defenseless warrior. He is no different than the kid he once was, the performer left on the side of a road, beaten and bruised by his own trainer's hands.

There has to be a reason he can't pull the string. Maybe it's because he recognizes her glow. He realizes the trance she's in, the hypnosis of the stage, the intoxication of the show. He used to make crowds cheer himself. He used to adore their roars and screams, the way they applauded so loudly for his easiest tricks. Maybe it's that he's been there, he remembers that feel of _all eyes on me._

But probably not. It's probably just that the river, every river, every last drink of water since the beginning of time…it all seems to flow in her.

Beneath him, Natasha lifts into the sky one last time, her toes pointed, her legs grazing heaven, held as high as her chin.

He's seen her do good things this week. He's watched her enter and exit The Red Room, where she trains, where she is taught order and chaos. She would haul supplies and stash treats for the fellow ladies, the girls with ID tattoos slashed into their skin.

He's watched her carry a new recruit to the hospital, three miles away, with a broken ankle and a gash painted into her cheek. Three miles of unceasing, unwavering will.

He's watched her best heavyweights and contortionists with the swipe of her kick. Never blinking.

And now, for three quiet nights, he's watched her dance.

He will not be killing Natasha Romanoff.

Not now, and not ever.

An ironic smile stretches Clint's mouth, as he finally accepts this statement as fact. It was a difficult phrase to form, like an admission of defeat. And isn't that what it is, really? He's succumbed to the song and motions.

As the thought settles in, as the resolution is finally made, he can almost hear Natasha whisper in his ear. He can almost taste her breath, inches from his own, though she is only now hitting her final pose. In the dim ringing of the remaining music, he can almost hear her say:

"You couldn't kill me if you wanted to."

And he knows she's right.

* * *

_Author's Note: _This is a story I posted a year or so ago on my old account. I decided it was time to put it back up again. Hope you enjoy!


End file.
